


wild woodland blood

by Starbrow



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Bodywarmth, F/M, Golden Age (Narnia), Huddling For Warmth, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Sex, The Great Snow Dance, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26334625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbrow/pseuds/Starbrow
Summary: Once upon a time, a Daughter of Eve and a Faun met in the snow. This winter, they meet there as lovers for the Great Snow Dance...and a glimpse into the past far beyond the Long Winter.
Relationships: Lucy Pevensie/Tumnus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39
Collections: Narnia Fic Exchange 2020





	wild woodland blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



_Circling round and round the dancers was a ring of Dwarfs, all dressed in their finest clothes; mostly scarlet with fur-lined hoods and golden tassels and big furry top-boots. As they circled round they were all diligently throwing snowballs. (Those were the white things that Jill had seen flying through the air.) They weren't throwing them at the dancers as silly boys might have been doing in England. They were throwing them through the dance in such perfect time with the music and with such perfect aim that if all the dancers were in exactly the right places at exactly the right moments, no-one would be hit. This is called the Great Snow Dance and it is done every year in Narnia on the first moonlit night when there is snow on the ground. Of course it is a kind of game as well as a dance, because every now and then some dancer will be the least little bit wrong and get a snowball in the face, and then everyone laughs. But a good team of dancers, Dwarfs, and musicians will keep it up for hours without a single hit. On fine nights when the cold and the drum-taps, and the hooting of the owls, and the moonlight, have got into their wild, woodland blood and made it even wilder, they will dance till daybreak._  
-The Silver Chair, Chapter XV

-

Dear Mr. Tumnus, the _most dear_ of Tumneses, who had become Master Tumnus to their Majesties over the years, and who was now just Tumnus to Lucy...no, _her_ Tumnus!

It was the most important of changes, and yet she could not say precisely when it had happened, anymore than the very moment when fall first shivered in the air or when the first bulb of spring poked its head up through the slushy ground.

She could say precisely when she had first kissed him: her last birthday, when near the end of her party she’d walked with him to their alcove overlooking the Eastern Sea and hugged him fiercely, and told him she loved him, as she had many times before, but this time she was aware of his warmth, his earthy scent, the burr of soft fur against her arms where she encircled his waist, the thicker line of dorsal fur up his back beneath her hands. The impulse had struck her suddenly. She was a little taller than him by now - she was much shorter than Susan, but still taller than most Fauns - and it took but a crook of her chin to dip and press her mouth to his.

His lips were as soft as his fur. Lucy kissed him with curiosity, and then with a quiet murmur, for he tasted just as he should, of tea and cake and something spicy she could not place. Cardamom? Her fingers curled into his furred back, and then - 

“Oh!” She broke away, blinking, gasping. She let go, and her cheeks were a bright red. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Tumnus. I didn’t even ask - ”

His cheeks rivaled hers, cardinal-red. Tumnus shook his head fervently. He looked dazed. “Don’t apologize, Your Highness. It is - ”

“My fault,” Lucy continued in a rush. “I don’t know what’s come over me, I didn’t even have any wine tonight.”

“Indeed, it is my fault,” he said, still shaking his head. “You danced the whole night, your head must still be whirling, and perhaps you were thinking of Lord Garin…?”

“I despise Lord Garin,” cried Lucy, who did not despise anybody, but was quite indignant that he would think she could mistake him for anybody but his very dear self. “I wanted to do that. With you. Tumnus. And I want to do it again.” She was so eager to prove herself reliable on this point, her tongue galloped far beyond prudence, and her eyes went wide.

But Tumnus, still blushing, just grinned with the old, shy smile like he knew a delicious secret, and took her hand. “I want you to do it again.”

And she did.

-

She did it so many times over the next few months, it soon felt as though she had been doing it her whole life, or at least her whole adult life. There was a very great deal of kissing behind closed doors...and in cozy caves...and on long walks up the shores of the Eastern Sea or along the banks of the Great River.

And while everything had changed, at the same time very little had changed too. She could still talk to him as she always had, once the first shyness of rediscovering their friendship in light of being lovers had worn off. She could tell him of her latest work, her days that were good and the ones that weren’t, and he would listen, and advise when she wanted it, just as he always had. Really the only difference was that she could always claim a kiss and an embrace at the end of each of those days, and it made them all, at the end, into good days.

Deciding when to make it official...that was definitely the hardest part of the transition. Given that Cair Paravel was full of beings with both keen eyes and vigorous minds, everybody knew, but there was some sort of unspoken (or perhaps spoken quietly, probably by Susan) pact to let them have their peace for a while. It wasn’t in Lucy’s nature to hide anything, there was just a great deal that came along with anything...official. And it was far more complicated, from an official standpoint, to be in love with a Faun than it would have been if he’d been even a common-born Man.

In the end, it was a team effort. Edmund was her legal consultant - and there was plenty of precedent, dating back to the very first King and Queen of Narnia and their children, for courtship and intermarriage between the species. Susan managed the press of it all beautifully, for Lucy was of course the first of them all to come into Narnia, the one who had grown up here the most and had put down the deepest roots, and was it truly so surprising, or merely wonderful, that she should have developed the most tender of feelings for her oldest and dearest friend here? (Susan, privately, also played Chief Consultant to the late-night under-the-covers sort of confessions and questions that are an older sister’s inherent territory.) And Peter - well, he simply was her champion. What Lucy wanted, Lucy got. That was a baby sister’s privilege.

Sometimes she thought about what it would be like to be simply another Narnian. Perhaps a girl from the Lone Islands, or an Archenland immigrant, a common girl, as she’d been born in England, who happened to fall in love with another Narnian, a Narnian who happened to be a Faun. It would all be so much simpler.

But then she would wake on those precious nights in Tumnus’s cave when she could slip away, to feel his arms around her in his snug bed, warmed by the soft fur against her bare legs, knowing that he loved her for precisely who she was - Lucy, and Queen Lucy; friend, and now lover; Valiant, and unsure for the future - and she would not change anything about what had been or what would be.

-

The perfect adventure together emerged with the first snowfall of the year prophesied in two days by the Centaurs. Tumnus sipped his tea as he told her of his customary plans to travel west to the Dancing Lawn for the Great Snow Dance, to be among the musicians there.

“Not that they need me -”

“They do!” said Lucy, setting her teacup down so hard it rattled against the saucer. “You are the best piper they have.” She’d been there, several years. She’d heard him. He was the best. She wasn’t biased, one bit.

Tumnus flushed. “You don’t have to be kind…” just because you love me….

And Lucy laughed, and leaned over the table and kissed him just because she loved him. “I’m not kind. I’m honest.” 

Tumnus could not put up any kind of counter-argument, and Lucy won that round.

When she leaned back, triumphant, he was gratifyingly red-lipped and confounded. Whatever he’d been about to say had to be gotten back on track. Lucy practiced patience, and was rewarded. “Well...indeed what I had hoped...was that...you would accompany me to the Great Snow Dance,” Tumnus managed at last. “If you would like.”

His answer was a pair of arms flung about his neck, and a kiss there at the nape, and Lucy would like very much.

-

There were details to be managed, like negotiating with her siblings for just how much of a retinue to take on such a journey. A large party would utterly defeat the purpose of fleeing Cair Paravel. Certainly no humans, whatsoever. And her Wolf, Asena, would mark her instantly as Queen Lucy. It was a long battle, but in the end, she bargained down to Asena and her mate Garmir following at a discreet distance, taking turns standing watch at night, in return for a few hours less of traveling per day. She quite thought she got the best of the bargain.

On the day they set out, the snow was just beginning to fall. Lucy caught a few snowflakes in the palm of her glove, welcoming the advent of this year’s winter. A few rampant flakes clung to her hood, slipped beneath to catch at her lashes and kiss her cheeks. She threw a look full of snow-tipped mischief at a thickly-scarfed Tumnus beside her, who arched a brow.

“Think you can keep up?” she said, patting her mare Llamrei’s neck.

“I certainly plan to try,” and Tumnus stamped a hoof, and Llamrei stamped hers, and they were off. 

Of course, it was a two-day journey of easy riding to the Dancing Lawn, and none of them were planning to gallop the whole way there. So after half an hour in which Llamrei had rolled her eyes enough at Tumnus, and he had proven he was not so middle-aged a Faun as to let a mere dumb horse beat him, they settled into a trot following the river for most of the way. They would camp just before the Fords of Beruna tonight. They’d made good time.

The moon was just hiding herself tonight in the faintest sliver, at least three nights from peeking out enough to dance by. Lucy, musing before the fire with supreme contentment on all those nights of freedom, smiled as Tumnus joined her on her fallen-log bench. She snuggled down, close against his shoulder, and he put his arm around her. Somewhere in the darkness, lupine eyes kept watch, while Asena curled in front of the fire, tail idling lashing.

“There was another reason I asked you to come,” Tumnus admitted. Lucy looked at him curiously, waiting for him to explain. He contemplated the fire as he did so. “I would like to show you my mother’s tree. What is left of it.”

She was caught unawares, her eyes widening. Why had she never thought to ask about Tumnus’s mother? She’d seen the portrait of his father, the very first day she’d met Tumnus. But there were no traces of his mother in that neat little cabin. Lucy overlapped her hand with his, over his leg. “She was a Dryad?”

“Hespera. A Golden Apple of the Shuddering Wood,” Tumnus said. He sounded more far away than she’d ever heard him. “I was still a small Faun, by our reckoning, when I knew her. My father and I would come to the Dancing Lawn, each season, and she would be there, and catch me in her strong arms, and tell me how big I was growing, and then she would dance with my father, and he never seemed so merry as when he was in the circle with her.”

Lucy smiled, imagining the scene he described, almost able to make out shapes in the fire, one great tall willowy one for his Dryad mother, one solid middle-ish one for his father, one tiny licking flame for wee Tumnus. 

“I was in my adolescence, in the most beautiful of summers, when She came.” There was a shift in Tumnus’s voice, and an audible emphasis on who he spoke of. Lucy pressed closer. “My father fought in the wars against her. You know this. But I never told you that my mother did too. Her tree was old and strong, her strength as great as her roots were deep. It was not until they cut her down in her forest, hundreds of miles south of the battlefield, that she could be stopped. She was a powerful Dryad, and drew Deep Magic from the earth.”

Lucy stared at the flames. She remembered what Tumnus had conjured with his pipes, the first day they’d met, the dancing figures there. How entranced she’d been, by his music, by the visions within the fire. How entranced she was now.

With a start, she glanced up at him, at his face. “You - you have her power too?”

Tumnus shook his head. “Only the smallest portion of it. There was one autumn when the Hags came to the Dancing Lawn. I saw her drive them away with her sisters, singing, weaving some kind of spell that I could barely detect. She was something ancient and wild, something Narnia will never replace, not for five hundred years.”

Lucy stroked the bones of his hand. “Your father was a lucky Man - er, Faun.”

She felt Tumnus’s quiet sigh like a single laugh. “He always thought so. They danced together, and ran for a summer, and coupled long enough to have me. But my mother’s children would always be her woods, her Dryad daughters. It is for the Fauns to raise their sons.”

She contemplated this knowledge as she had everything else in Narnia, young enough to accept it all as simple way of life rather than anything strange or unnatural. “She thought he had a nice face,” Lucy mused, touching Tumnus’s face.

He turned his cheek into her palm and kissed it. “She would have thought so of you, too.”

-

They reached the Shuddering Woods by the following afternoon. Their pace slowed until Lucy hopped off of Llamrei and walked by Tumnus’s side. Faint dustings of snow drifted through the smattering of trees there. She noticed they were all young by Narnian standards, their trunks slim and supple, their canopies low. And with a few steps deeper into the forest, she saw why.

A circle of great moss-grown stumps made a clearing in the Shuddering Woods’ heart. There were middling stumps nearby too. Daughter trees, thought Lucy, tearing up suddenly. Daughters, and sisters in the circle. Hespera.

She touched Tumnus’s hand, searching, and he clasped hers. Wordlessly, he led her to Hespera’s stump. It was indeed the base of what was once a mighty tree. Lucy sank to her knees, pressing her free fingers to her lips, not knowing what was proper tribute for a fallen Dryad. Tumnus drew her hand in his and touched their joined fingertips to the rough bark. He, too, was in the grass beside her. He closed his eyes, and for a few moments there was only the soft whirl of the wind carrying snowflakes through the clearing.

She thought of the day of the carnage, imagined the sounds of sawing, of axes hacking. She could imagine Hespera on the battlefield, feeling each blow, knowing it was too late to reach her tree in time, fighting on in spite of the killing pain.

She pressed the fingers from her lips to Hespera’s tree. “Narnia remembers you,” said Lucy. “We honour you and your sisters.” 

“Your son remembers you,” said Tumnus. “We will fight for your Narnia, as you did, to your last leaf.”

-

They camped by the western banks of the Great River that night, close to the orchard of Cherry Trees, following a solemn ride for the rest of the few hours before dusk. Asena flopped down by Lucy’s feet, but after only a few minutes, Lucy picked up her bedroll and laid it down beside Tumnus’s.

He eased himself down beside her and brushed his fingers through her hair. “It meant a great deal to me. Today.”

She let her eyes close, luxuriating in the gentle stroking. “Thank you for showing me.”

Tumnus set his forehead against hers. “You are the first. But I think it should be as you said. Narnia should remember her.”

Lucy laid her hand flat over his chest, and counted to three thrums of his heartbeat. “We will. I promise you.”

She fell asleep that night to the rhythm of his heart, and woke the next morning to the not-so-soft snores of Gamrir, slumped next to them.

-

Snow began to fall in earnest that third day, as predicted. Llamrei delicately picked her way across the slippery surface, and Tumnus had to lightly prance. The Wolves simply stalked through, masters of this pristine icy landscape. It was slower going, but they crossed the frozen river south of Beruna late that afternoon and could hear the sounds of drums greeting them as they rode in. Paths had been stamped into the light blanket of snow, leading up to the camp the Winter revelers had made.

Many voices joined the chorus of rhythmic welcome; Tumnus by name, Lucy by title, but most often as “my Queen.” Dryads, Fauns, Dwarfs, even a few Centaurs, all made up the camp of Snow Dancers and Tossers. Lucy had never felt more at home. She slid off of Llamrei and trooped behind Tumnus to the band of musicians, who were warming up (quite literally) to the thrum of a Dwarf’s drums. He was not the last to arrive, amid the handful of fiddles, flutes, percussion, singers, and sundry others grew and grew until there were enough musicians to play until dawn, if need be. Lucy had heard of those nights, though she had never quite made it until daybreak at a Snow Dance before.

Clutching the warm drink she’d been handed, she sat and listened to the woven flicker of little melodic strains and scales and bits of gossip that curled throughout the assembled players. It was so comforting, she would have been content to stay there a good deal longer, nestled in her thick sturdy traveling clothes, if not for the Cherry Tree Dryad, Kiras, who spotted her and immediately blew a shivering breeze at her as she flitted near.

“Come, my Lady. I have commission from your royal sister herself.” With such a forewarning, Lucy was wary as she uncurled and joined the Dryad, who was bare and unadorned for winter, all her beautiful petals dormant in await of spring, wearing a simple crown of holly leaves and berries. However, as it turned out, it could have been far worse than what Kiras pulled from a satchel in the laurel bower she led Lucy to: a beautiful fur-lined cloak of green velvet, embroidered in gold, with traditional golden tassels adorning the hem, and a surprisingly warm kirtle of a scalloped pattern to match. There were even covers for her boots like the ones the Dwarfs wore, with fur inside and out in great fluffy tops. Once it was all on over the traveling underlayers, Lucy felt just as bundled but infinitely grander.

“One last thing,” and Kiras wove a crown of silver buttonwood, soft as velvet, into her hair. Lucy was grateful it wasn’t laurel. She gave an experimental toss of her head to make sure it was all securely braided in. It was, of course. Dryads know their flower crowns.

She hugged the Cherry Tree, wiry though the winter limbs were. “Thank you.” She wouldn’t have thought of this on her own. It was just like Susan to think of it. “And my sister. It’s - it’s splendid.” Lucy stepped back and tried out a whirl. The cloak immediately spun in a pleasing billow, the dress rippling more slowly in a full revolution.

Kiras watched and nodded. “It will do very well for the Dusk Rounds.” The early dances, when anyone who wished to join in might, before the moon rose, before the Dance began in earnest, and the count of hours before a step was missed. 

Lucy hesitated. She had danced in the Dusk the last times, but now? It only seemed fair that a Queen of Narnia should know the steps and not merely watch them. “Will you teach me? The true Dances?”

\- 

By dusk, they had rejoined the fire, which was kept burning until moonrise for the sake of the musicians’ fingers and lips. There was no one time when anything began. There were already a few dancers and a chorus of song, rowdy and eager to begin the fun. The Dusk troop was young - sapling Dryads, Fauns with half-grown horns and downy fur, green musicians eager to stretch their chops, and Dwarflings with more energy than precision. As the crowd grew and the groups began to crystallize into the basic structure - the dancers all in the middle, the Dwarfs in a great ring around the edge - there was a buzz of excitement in the air. Other than Christmas, this was the winter night they all liked best. 

Lucy felt her cheeks glowing with it as she rustled past Tumnus in her furs and velvets. She met his eyes, delighting in the sparkle of admiration she found there, and winked. Even dared to kiss his cheek in passing, though since he was not playing yet, it would not be a very great distraction. 

Night fell over the revel, crisp and cold and crackling. The most skilled of the Dusk dancers would enter the Great Dance, and gradually the energy shifted from frivolity to focus, though the fun was never lost, and there were plenty of snowballs landed either by chance or by purpose.

Lucy stood watching for a few minutes, teeth dug into her lip, just staring at the feet of the dancers, before Kiras nudged her with one branch. “You are ready. Go. Fear not.”

Lucy would not have called it fear, but certainly there were nerves fluttering as she made her way in. She slipped between two Dwarfs and into the inner tapestry of the Dance. For a heart-pounding second, she felt a flash of panic, like she’d never practiced a single step, and stood frozen. She knew she had to move, but she couldn’t.

It was a thread of melody that slipped past her like a lifeline, something to cling to. She reached out, touched it, moved towards it. It curled around her like an old friend. Easily, she followed the rhythm it suggested - a pick-up, a stomp, then four fast small steps and a sway. Repeat. Only then did she realize what it was, and how Tumnus had used a Narnian lullaby to wake her up this time. She glanced across the gleaming snow at him, and smiled. He inclined his head, and played on.

She was easing into the patterns Kiras had drilled with her. Not as smoothly as if she had practiced them for weeks - and oh, she would, next time - but they were the beginnings of habits. A few stumbles, a near-miss once, but she did not get smacked in the face by any wet snow this time.

When the fire was winking out, and the first pale glow of the moon peeked over the ring of swaying Trees that framed the circle, Lucy slid back out. She was breathing hard, but still she couldn’t keep the smile from her face. She gratefully accepted a mug of mulled cider, spiced and spiked, and Tumnus joined her for a quick drink himself. Somehow, each had an arm about the other’s waist, as warm as any fire.

“I am in very grave danger,” he confessed, putting his forehead to hers, “of watching you dance instead of paying attention to my music.”

“I need your music,” Lucy said, murmuring fiercely. “I shall forget everything, else.” And for a moment, she might have, for she was kissing him and nothing else was as vivid as that pinpoint of joining. But their blood surged tonight with not just desire but collective wildness, and they each had a part to play.

“Well then,” and the tips of Tumnus’s ears were red when they disentangled, “I will do my best to help you remember.” 

Warm from both kiss and the dregs of the cider, Lucy joined Kiras just as moonlight was beginning to bounce off the snowy tracks and cast a blue sort of halo over the dancers. Those who were not so lucky as to make it to moonrise were sent forth with a kiss or a pinch or a snowball to the face, depending on the seasoned dancer’s liking, to watch and make merry and sleep while the others toiled.

For it was work, of a sort. The complexity of the steps required single-minded focus. The constant shift of the ring around the dance, and the changing angles of the icy projectiles, required the dancer to watch both near and far, to be in near perpetual motion. Lucy had never done anything quite like it. The closest she had come was in battle, the kind of focus and attention to the present that was needed, reflexes ready, yet a settled rhythm necessary to maintain composure. But dancing, unlike battle, was for the joy of it, the joy of the labour and its intricacy, the thrill of keeping up the fight with none of the danger. How new and wonderful!

She was proud to have earned a place in their ranks. And even greater than pride was the way she fit among them, the Fauns and Dryads and Dwarfs and other Narnians, she the only human there, and it did not really matter, not in the ways that counted.

She realized everything that had come before was just a warm-up. Practice for the real thing. This was the true Dance, the true music. The players had saved their best songs and their full breaths for these hours. When the moon, new and shy, cast her pale light over the gleaming snow, and the Owls hooted their encouragement, and the watchers stamped their feet in time to the infectious beat, urging the dancers on...it was in all of their blood. The wildness of Winter, true and untainted. They could not not move. They had to let it out, some way, some how. 

Wild Narnian tunes swirled around her. Lucy danced in and out of them, as if they were other dancers she could weave herself between. Strains of melodies danced with her, caressing, winking at her in the darkness, sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce and driving. They were old friends and new loves. And she knew she had never felt anything so right as this night.

Through the tapestry of sound, on that cold and crystal-clear landscape, she could make out a haunting thread winding up and up and up, plaintive as the wind itself, whistling through her hair and curling behind her ears. And then a second added to it, lower, harmonizing, holding as the other twined wistfully. Oh, what did it want? Lucy turned, aching to give it whatever it called for…

And was caught by Tumnus’s eyes, above his pipes. Only a moment, a toes-deep warmth in the hazel of his tender-longing gaze. She had but the little window between her row near the musicians, and the ring of the Dwarfs, and she could not stay still, for here must be this turn, a looping vine around…

But Lucy felt the tingling of that one look throughout her whole body, more visceral (and far more delicious) than frostbite. She let the melodies he set free wash over her. They pulled her inexorably deeper into the pale magic of the moonlit madness, strange and sweet, fleet-footed and full of forever.

And she just...danced.

-

The moon was still high when a hand drew her out of the rounds, the firm wooden lines of a Dryad’s hands, and into others, ones that drew her close and let their bodies gradually slow together. Lucy felt snow-blind, blinking to see...but of course she knew who it was, holding her. She pulled off her gloves, reaching for his hands, the light dusting of fur on the backs of them, and the solid warmth of them.

No, cold! So cold. She was burning hot, almost feverish in her thick furs from the constant whirl of the dance, and the wool that clung to her, damp against her skin with perspiration. She gathered his hands between hers, and then to her chest. “Tumnus. You must get warm. You have played too long.”

“And you must stay dry, to stay warm. You danced even more than I played.”

An arm around her waist, and a Wolf pacing in their wake, he led her away from the music and the dancers that would continue on, perhaps until dawn, and towards a path that led into the woods, where small fires burned where their light would not be visible through the trees, and where mugs of steaming cider were perched atop stones. Lucy drank hers eagerly. She had not realized how thirsty she was until that moment. She was slower on her second cup. By then she was meeting Tumnus’s eyes once more, the glow of the Dance still shining in hers.

“I don’t want it to end,” she confessed, feeling almost shy, though there was no reason to. 

“It need not,” he promised her, and he was right.

He led her back to the bower of twined laurels, where Kiras had had to dip her head to fit, but the two of them managed just fine. Asena flopped down outside the narrow entrance. The flicker of a small lamp was the only light inside, for the moon and stars could not breach the combined canopies and brush.

“All of your things were brought here; your packs, bedroll, everything but Llamrei. You should have a fine change of clothing to go out and enjoy the rest of the night in, no need to stay in wet clothes and catch your death, that would be a horrid ending, would it not? I’ll just be here if you need me…”

And Tumnus turned to duck outside. 

Lucy caught his arm. “Or you could stay, because I need you.”

He paused, half-pivoting on his hooves, and looked at her, and there was that quiet, slow smile that was all hers, all for her.

She slid her arms around him, and nuzzled her nose under the bundle of his thick scarf, and found the warm skin beneath. Her fingers traveled over his chest, down the line of fur bisecting his stomach. His skin was colder than usual, reminding her of their first goal. “We both should warm up,” she said, and being Lucy, her statement was both truthful and inviting.

Tumnus nodded. “Where to start?”

Lucy unfastened the brooch of her cloak - she would want to dive back under its furs soon, but it would get in the way until then - and turned so that he would have access to the laces of her kirtle. “It’s the lowest layers that need to come off,” and she snuck a glance over her shoulder, under her lashes, and was pleased to see him looking flustered. She could still fluster him. Good.

Bravely, Tumnus reached for her laces. His fingers were only a little clumsy with cold, but his touch was gentle and his efforts valiant. When it was loosened enough, she shrugged out of the kirtle with its long thick sleeves and skirts, and that was when the cold really struck Lucy, for the wet woolen layers closest to her skin but remained. She shivered, snuggling close to his bare chest. “How do you do it?” 

Tumnus smiled. “Grow a coat like mine and you’ll see.”

Lucy just laughed and ran her fingers across the fine layer of down that covered his skin above the waist. Growing up Narnian had made such things seem perfectly natural. “Teach me how and I shall try it.” Her nails traced up his stomach to his chest, the gentle slope of muscle there, and her palm flattened over his heart. Impishly, her thumb grazed the flat circle of a nipple. 

“Lucy.” The way he breathed her name made her shiver, and not just from the cold. Lucy wanted to do it again, but the shiver seemed to galvanize him to action. He put his hands to the hem of her woolen vest and tunic. Wordlessly, she lifted her arms for him. The threads of silver buttonwood woven into her hair survived the fabric sliding over her head, although she was left with a little halo of wisps crowning her head and a simple bandeau around her breasts. “This needs to go too, I think,” Lucy whispered, and unhooked it, and there it went. 

She’d seen enough breasts to know that hers were nothing special, although they were all right, she supposed, and felt quite nice. Tumnus must have seen infinitely more in his hundred-thirty years (and that always felt odd to remember!) in Narnia, with its many beings who routinely eschewed clothing. And yet the way his gaze moved over her now, tender as a caress and spilling with longing, left her glowing. 

“Touching will help warm both of us,” said Lucy, and reached out to take his hand and place it between her breasts. His hand mimicked the path hers had taken moments before, spreading over smooth skin until finding the pebbling of her nipple. She couldn’t help shivering again, with both pleasure and, well, cold. 

Lucy grabbed her cloak with its bountiful fur, still quite dry, and slung it around both of them like an intimate tent, then drew them down to the ground atop her bedroll. “This will serve our purpose,” she said, and slid her hands over his. “Now all this wonderful heat will not go to waste.”

For the more he touched her, and she him, the more warmth seemed to come from within and spill over the two of them together. She ended up on his lap, trousers and boots and all, and bare from the waist up. Lucy laughed as she kissed him, for this was precisely the sort of setting that seemed so romantic and yet the circumstances would have made her feel very awkward indeed if they were not already so familiar with each other’s bodies.

“Lucy,” and this time the way he growled her name was different. Almost animalic. Lucy’s knees tightened around his hips.

“At this rate,” she murmured against his neck, “we won’t even get everything off.”

Oh well?

Her words were prophetic. She ground on top of him, his hands over her bare skin, her hands raking through down and fur, until they both reached a breaking point and dealt with the barrier of her trousers and undergarments, shoving them down around her thighs where the fabric was stretched to its limit with her legs folded around him.

She sank her fingers into his curls. “Warm me up.”

“Your Majesty,” Tumnus crooned in her ear, and the blunted tip of him, emerged from its thick nest of fur, nuzzled its way inside her. 

Lucy curled her fingertips and rocked atop him. Warmth unfurled deliciously from where they joined and moved, and it was doubly pleasure to have him and to feel herself melt from the inside out. The wildness that had surged in her blood under the moon and in the swell of his songs found its outlet at last. She was untamed, unleashed. She ran headlong, galloping. Her hands found purchase...horns, short and blunt...and she ran her thumbs up to the tips.

Tumnus, beneath her, uttered something guttural. Lucy clasped him and rode him, hard. No shame came with the hunger at the meeting of their hips, her naked skin, his thickly furred legs beneath her buttocks. It was just as it should be. She wanted all that he was, all that was hers. 

The bramble of laurels around them cradled the harmony of their moans. The moon, perhaps, heard their duet, high above the canopy of the trees. They were not the only Narnians to couple in that forest, to the sound of distant drumbeats, and the hooting of Owls, the stamping of feet, the high sweet wail of flute and fiddle and voice. They were but a part of it, adding their small rhythm to it all. And when Lucy called up stars behind her eyes, and Tumnus danced in her footsteps, they played their part in the deep night of the Great Snow Dance.

It would have to continue without them, after, for they fell asleep in each other’s arms beneath a pile of cloaks, the echoes of the music in their dreams.

-

Lucy woke slowly, nestled close to the warmth that was Tumnus around her, lullabied by morning songbirds and no other music. She stirred, burrowing down. Every corner of her being felt sated, new muscles sore. All that was that night came flooding back to her, and the sheer wonder of it tugged at the corners of her eyes. She blinked, trying to clear the sudden tears and the sleep.

Buried against Tumnus’s chest, she felt him stir too, but he must have been awake already, for his eyes were clearer as she lifted her chin. And from somewhere - he must have magic, she could never tell where he managed to hide it - he drew a very well-worn, oft-washed handkerchief. “We both are going to need this,” he said, and she could see the tell-tale sheen in his eyes too. “We might as well get used to sharing.”

-


End file.
